Blueblood lay back on his luxurious, king-sized bed and stared up at the ceiling. He was still clothed, but didn’t care. The previous day, when he’d been so envious of Twilight Sparkle, he’d wished for wings of his own. Now that he had them, his life had instantly become a parade of one headache after another. Irony was a cruel, bitter bitch.
First, there were the literal headaches, caused by bumping his cranium on things while learning to fly. Then he’d been beaten up by some thugs and been saved by a mysterious mare. But the crowning negative achievement, the biggest moment of suck, was making a fool of himself in front of Cadance. He still winced at that memory.
It was not something Blueblood wanted to remember. Luckily, there were plenty of other terrible things for him to think about.
Aw, but you’re so cute when you’re embarrassed, said the voice. Lucky for me, that happens a lot.
“Shut up,” he muttered darkly.
Come on, we should talk. I know you want to figure out what is going on as much as I do.
“What are we going to talk about?” Blueblood asked, waving a hoof at the ceiling. “We don’t have any new information. No new facts or figures. It’ll be a useless endeavor to actually try anything, so I’d rather lie here in a heap of my own depression, thank you very much.”
Fair point, but maybe we can go out tonight and learn more. If we meet up with Bright Defender again, we can have a little conversation.
“I’m not going out again.”
Why not? You enjoyed it.
“No I didn’t!” That memory with Shining Armor popped back in his head. “I definitely didn’t enjoy staring at anything either!”
You can’t lie to me, Blueblood. I’m in your head.
“You don’t know what I’m feeling!”
Yes I do. I know what you’re thinking. You know, I think that I'm more true to you than even you are.
Blueblood grumbled. “Oh yeah, Trueblood?”
Hey, I kinda like that. I think I’ll adopt that as my name.
“I take it back!”
She giggled. Too late! I hereby christen myself Princess Trueblood, of the Royaly Pompous Nogginhood of your head!
Letting out a breath, Blueblood closed his eyes in annoyance. “Fine… but I’m calling you Trudy.”
Not fair! I get to call you a pet name, then!
Blueblood cringed. “What could it possibly be?”
Oh, I’ll think of something. Just give me time.
The threat of a nickname looming over his head was perhaps worse than getting slapped with it up front. And judging by Trudy’s past conversations that he was forced to listen to, it couldn’t be anything good.
“Just try to be mature about it,” he reminded her.
Hey, I’m as mature as you. Heck, I kind of am you. Which actually means I’m not very mature after all. Funny how logic works, right?
“You are not me! You’re just some… some… thing that suddenly appeared in my head one day and started talking to me. That’s the only similarities we share, nothing more.” Blueblood sat up, as if attempting to assert his dominance over the conversation. The large mirror over his wardrobe caught his eye. Trudy’s face was overlaid on his. She caught him looking.
Her reflection smirked at him. “I may not be you, but we sure look alike.”
Indeed, Blueblood was surprised to see she was very similar looking to himself. The larger mirror showed him more of her. While Trudy’s face was more feminine than his own, they shared the same strong jaw, along with a golden colored mane falling into their eyes. And while her body was smaller than his own, she still looked quite strong, with much more muscle definition than was expected from most mares. There was still the fact she looked more like a changeling than a pony, what with her hole-filled limbs, fanged mouth, and insect wings. Other than that, however, she really did have many of Blueblood’s physical traits.
“You’re just making me see that!” he protested. “You’re a changeling; you can be anything you want!”
“No I can’t,” she reminded him. “I’m in your head.”
“Fine, you can make me see anything you want!” Blueblood still defended himself, backing away from his reflection. Trudy did likewise, copying his movements perfectly. “And stop doing that!”
“I can’t!” she reminded him, rolling her eyes. “I’m you, but not you at the same time. While I do have independence, I have to follow some things you can only do. I don’t have a real body of my own. Which, if you didn’t already know, sucks.”
“You talking in my head sucks way more!” Blueblood protested, the movement of his hoof pointing at her lost when she did likewise. “Do you know how creepy that is?”
“Do you know how creepy it is being stuck in your head?” Trudy asked, arching a brow at him. “I don’t know if this is the same for all stallions, but you’re a broken record. Parties and social events this, sex that, alcohol here, fashion there, and mane cleaning products being a really major focus of yours.”
“Wait, I think about sex only a minority of the time?” Blueblood interjected.
“I’m trying to be serious here!” Trudy pleaded. “Look, we should be working together. Neither of us can help being in this situation. I may be changeling spawn, but I’m trying not to act like a villain here!”
“At least you don’t look completely like a changeling,” Blueblood muttered, glancing at Trudy’s face in the mirror.
She paused for a moment in thought. “You know, my other half had to come from somewhere else. I know my mom must be the changeling queen, but I still should have a dad somewhere.”
Blueblood blanched. “You’re not seriously suggesting…?”
They both looked away simultaneously, an awkward tension filling the air. Trudy coughed. “Um, maybe we could talk about something else?”
“No arguments from me.” Blueblood stared at his hooves for a moment. “So, what sort of magic do you have? You changed how the wings looked, so can you do anything else?”
“A new look for your whole body?” Trudy guessed. “Let me try.”
“Whoa, you can change my entire body?” Blueblood asked, tilting his head at his appearance. “Like, make me look however I want?”
“Well, if that was really Shining Armor attached to that sweet flank you were checking out last night, and he’s got the same thing going on that we do, then yes, I should be able to.”
Blueblood’s face flustered red. “I did not look at his–I mean, her flank! And besides, I don’t even want to be a mare!”
“That’s a relief,” she giggled. “Right now I’m still pretty new to this, so any changes will have to stick with your current size. So no strutting around town like a girl for you, unless you wanted to be a really fat one.”
“I am not fat! This is all muscle!” Blueblood objected, flexing as many muscles as possible to his reflection.
“Hmm… looks a little too chunky for that,” Trudy said, snickering under her breath at Blueblood’s attempts to show off his in-shape physical form.
“Just… just shut up.”
“Well okay then, Prince Grumpy. How do you want to look?”
“Can you possibly make me look more handsome and dashing than I already am?”
“Gee, I don’t know.” Trudy rolled her eyes. “I don’t think your ego could support it.”
“Oh, so now I’m an individual instead of being us?” Blueblood asked her, rubbing his chin. “Actually, if I’m an egotist, wouldn’t that make you one, too?”
Trudy scoffed. “Hardly. We might be a team, but if anything, you’re the face and I’m the brains.”
Blueblood grinned. “I’m okay with that. Nopony ever said, ‘You’ve got a handsome brain.’”
“You want to be handsome, huh?” Trudy grinned, her lips quirking with mischief. “Not…fabulous?”
A wash of green fire washed over Blueblood’s body, not harming him in the slightest, but leaving behind a very obvious change in its wake. From horn to hoof, he was now pink.
Blueblood gasped in horror, staring at his reflection in the mirror. “What is this...I don’t even…”
Unable to hold her laughter, Trudy burst out with raucous guffaws that surely would have drawn the attention of anypony else in the castle if she wasn’t in Blueblood’s head. He glared at her until her mirth subsided, wiping tears from her eyes.
“Are you quite finished?” he asked crossly.
“Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you’re not liking the pink. Hmm. You can’t go wrong with black!”
Another flash of changeling magic, and Blueblood now looked like a photo negative of himself. While an improvement over the pink, it was still not quite his thing. “Maybe something a bit lighter.”
“Royal purple?” asked Trudy.
“No, I think not.” Blueblood was trying to avoid anything to do with Twilight Sparkle. “Something a little different.”
There was another flash and he had turned a shade of deep midnight blue. Considering that, Blueblood nodded. “Warmer… though I’ll look pretty odd as a completely blue stallion walking around,” Blueblood noted, noticing how even his clothes were shifted to the blue hue. “Got a way to fix that?”
“How about this?” she asked, his clothes melting to puddy for a moment due to her magic. Suddenly he found himself enveloped in them, the midnight blue texture of his suit covering himself completely. It lasted for just a moment, and when his initial freakout of suffocation passed, he found himself wearing a new type of material. It was form-fitting, flexible, and complemented his new look.
“So, you can transmogrify clothes?” Blueblood asked, impressed. “Cool, now I can be dressed for any occasion.”
“Better for me to choose your wardrobe, since the things you pick out can hardly be considered proper clothing.”
Blueblood huffed. “Bitch, I always dress fabulously.”
“Wouldn’t calling me a bitch also infer you as one as well?” Trudy asked with a smirk. “Since we are the same pony and everything?”
Blueblood narrowed his eyes. “I swear, decide whether we’re one or two separate ponies already!”
Trudy laughed, Blueblood’s anger mounting with each of her chuckles. “Okay, okay, sorry for bugging you,” she apologized, though there wasn’t much conviction behind her words. “Tell me what you think so far.”
Trudy disappeared to give Blueblood a chance to get a better view of himself in the mirror. He was covered in a strange dark blue substance that stuck to him skintight. There were slots for his horn and feathery wings to fit through. As he watched, a mask finished completely covering his head and face, leaving white spots over his eyes that still allowed him to see.
The overall effect was striking, quite an effective disguise. Blueblood had to admit that it was more than a little intimidating, too. Still, he felt a sense of coltlike glee from dressing up in a scary outfit. It felt almost like Nightmare Night.
“Hey now, sugary treats will just make your love handles stack up,” Trudy reminded him, appearing beside his reflection and nodding in approval at his getup. “But I feel as if we’re missing something…”
Blueblood frowned. “Yeah, a fitting cutie mark.”
They both pondered that for a moment before Trudy exclaimed, “I’ve got it! Your standard mark is a compass rose, right?”
“Of course. Knowing my directions is how I get home when I’m plastered drunk,” Blueblood replied. “Not the best cutie mark story, but hey, it fits.”
“So how about we make the new mark a compass needle, pointing true, and have it be drawing blood like another kind of needle?”
“Hmm.” Blueblood considered it. “Sounds badass, but a little self-serving. Pointing true, drawing blood?”
Trudy chuckled. “Well, as a superhero you can be called Trueblood. I don’t mind if you borrow my name.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Blueblood protested. “Also, what makes you think I want to keep crime fighting? I got beat up last time. Badly. You yelled at me for it, remember?”
“So we know what not to do the next time,” she prodded. There was a sparkle of magic and the new, completely awesome-looking cutie mark appeared on his hip. “Whaddya say?”
“You just enjoy seeing me in pain, don’t you?” Blueblood asked, his gut feeling telling him not to go through with this.
“Well, it isn’t much of a difference than how you are regularly: complaining constantly,” she reminded him with a stuck out tongue.
Staring at himself, and trying to ignore Trudy’s creepy forked tongue, Blueblood considered his new look. It did look rather striking. Dashing, even. Something truly heroic. But did he really want to be a hero? Did he really want to go out and make a fool of himself like last night in front of a bunch of thugs? Not to mention risking serious bodily harm.
The answer came to him suddenly. “Give me a pattern like a blood spray or something on the suit,” he commanded her, scowling at his reflection. “If I’m going to risk my life, I’m at least going to scare the crap out of the bad guy trying to kill me.”
Trudy’s eyebrows went up, apparently surprised at his turnaround in attitude, but she dutifully added a splatter of white across his chest that resembled the form of a bloody wound appearing from the chest. A symbol now resembling a bleeding heart appeared on his chest, the blood spatters flowing like a river all across his costume. Except it was white, which represented purity, Trueblood.
Or something. The costumed prince shook his head. “Symbolism is hard.”
“But asskicking is comparatively easy,” Trudy pointed out.
Blueblood shrugged, smiling underneath his mask. “Can’t argue with that.”